Luigi Radice is one of the first craftsman who was employed at Castello, famous and successful workshop in Cantù, founded in 1947 by Carlo Scotti.
After 20 years of great works, Luigi and Peppino Ascorti (another craftsman at Castello) decided to move from Castello to found their own brand Caminetto. They managed the new brand with the help of Mr Davoli, a famous Italian seller, creating great pipes which are still every well quoted in the international market of collection of smoking pipes. After 10 years the Caminetto has been sold and Luigi dediced to make a new brand, called with his own name, Radice. The first Radice pipe has been made in 1980.
Radice pipes have always been famous for the care of details, the classic and revisited design and the estrus of some shapes, that could be definite "a classical by Radice", by now. Luigi has always been the main actor of this creativeness, even when his sons, Gianluca and Marzio have been employed in the workshop.
The three artisans still create the unique pipes under the name of Radice, using the best briar available of the extra extra quality, seasoned and dryed for 3 to 6 years.
The mouthpieces have always been made in lucite (plexiglass); recently they are also making some stems using the vulcanite of very high quality, to cover some customers‘ requests. The first pipe made by the hand of Luigi Radice had the wall of the chamber painted with a black stain. Since then, to preserve this characteristic, all the Radice pipes are made with the wall of the chamber in black, using a water-based stain, which does not alter the quality of the smoke in any way. This stain is absolutely not made to cover natural imperfections of the briar.
During 25 years Radice have made a lot of prototypes and studies on his pipes; some remained just a trial, some have been transformed in a real "buttonhole", like their typical Twin Bore mouthpiece.
Radice pipes are available in the most important international markets, from Italy and generally in Europe, to United States. Recently Radice pipes are available also for Russian and Chinese smokers.